Plastic-y. Fake. Glamorized.
The name of the photobook is forgotten. I found it last week in the library when I was looking to procrastinate work with anything that I could get my hands on. I flipped through the pages, and hurried to my class upstairs. I've searched for it several times since, and never found. The name was common-but-catchy enough that it aroused one's interest, but not helpful enough to be found on the internet.
It was on women. It had women from ages four to eighty-six (the New York Socialite who noone told that partying is for only young people lady). It had captions like The popular clique of girls in highschool in xxx; Candy, who's a stripper in Vegas strip bleaches her skirt [in the bathroom] after a spill [she is naked, and so positioned in front of the mirror that you only know that she's not wearing anything]; fashion models touch-up their makeup in a party hosted by [insert big NYC fashion name]. I've rarely seen a book that was so genuine and candid in its portrayal of its subject.
And then it struck me. Fakeness is the portrayal. The tidied-up images from Kathmandu and the North for all those coffee books are all lies, and it's unfair to compare them to something that's not tidied up. Compare oranges to oranges, and fake apples and grapes to fake apples grapes. Then you see that the difference doesn't exist. It's not them, it's you-- you're the one doing all the fakery-jiggery and convincing yourself of things.